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Care-Bear Stare
aka: Mind Hug

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"Fighting hate with love only really works if you're Sailor Moon and can turn it into laser beams."

Sometimes the answer to your problem isn't love and caring. It's violence. Loving, caring violence.

One character bombards the other character's mind with The Power of Love, Precious Puppies, peace, joy, rainbows and other such sweet stuff. Sometimes it will cause damage to or drive off The Heartless, The Undead, Demons, and other enemies that are Made of Evil. When used on good guys, it may bolster morale and heal them in body and spirit. For this reason it's generally used by heroes against villains.

In some cases may work due to a combination of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good and Go Mad from the Revelation. Can be a practical use of Heart, and in some cases may even cause a Villainous BSoD and Brainwashing for the Greater Good. Thus it is both a sister trope to and the polar opposite of Mind Rape.

Compare Emotion Bomb, which isn't limited to nice feelings; Mental Affair, the "adult" version of this; and Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul, which is not as overt, if no less forceful.

Compare and contrast Holy Hand Grenade, Revive Kills Zombie, and Heart Beatdown. See also Super-Cute Superpowers. Not to be confused with another famous bear's "Hard Stare", which is really more of a Death Glare.

Named for the "attack" used by the Care Bears, naturally. The Space Whale Aesop being: "Don't fuck with a teddy bear born with a rainbow-laser cannon in its belly."


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • In the early episodes of Ah! My Goddess (episode 2 to be exact), Belldandy does this a lot to Keiichi.
  • Digimon:
    • Monzaemon, a teddy-bear-like whose main attack is the "Hearts Attack! With a hug!". It causes the opponent to float about in a heart-shaped bubble and giggle merrily.
    • His Evil Counterpart, Waru Monzaemon ("Waru" means "evil"), has the Heartbreak Attack, which causes the opponent to break down into a sobbing ball of Wangst for a few minutes.
  • The "Love Beam" was the specialty of Getalong in Flint the Time Detective. It helped calm down berserk Time Shifters, and occasionally prevent other fights/arguments from happening.
  • Double-Subverted in the Haruhi Suzumiya anime. After Kyon laments that he'd like to have even a bit of Haruhi's super-confidence, she gives him a Death Glare and then supposes she has sent "warm energy" into Kyon's body. Kyon, in his usual snarky attitude replies "I felt like my life was in danger.." Nothing else more completely illustrates how out-of-touch Haruhi is with her own nigh-omnipotence. Interestingly, once the battle started, he got into the game to the point that he was shouting his attack orders at the computer. Wouldn't Haruhi think it a bit strange if Kyon had immediately burst into full hot-blooded confidence as soon as she stared him down? A delayed reaction?
  • The various Forte/Fortissimo attacks from Heart Catch Pretty Cure are like this, as the attacks end up purifying the Heart Flowers of an affected human, freeing them from their problems. Erika Kurumi/Cure Marine has the dubious honor of being hit with it twice, the second time showing that it does bring about a calming effect on them and when a Giant Snackie is hit with one, he just turns his suit white, but he still works for the bad guys.
    Itsuki: It sounds like someone's getting serious about this game.
  • In His and Her Circumstances volume 16, Rika and Tsubasa Care Bear Stare Arima's horrid biological mother into submission.
  • Fans joke about Nanoha's attacks being this, to the point that "befriend" has become a synonym for "utterly defeat". Multiverse Crisis MUSH has turned it into an actual ability:
    Friendship Beamspam: Despite her total obliviousness to it, Nanoha has the strange and unexplainable ability to befriend anyone she causes physical harm to, ever since an incident wherein she slapped someone in first grade and they became her best friend. Studies and tests have confirmed this ability, though even Multiversal technology is at a loss to explain how or why it works. Is it radiation from the lasers? Some sort of Aura? No one knows, but it can generally be assumed that physical harm dealt by Nanoha will result in her making a new friend, with the degree of physical damage directly proportional to the level of friendship. How this translates to Aurics in the Multiverse has yet to be tested. (Consent Required where applicable.)
  • In Majuutsukai no Shojo, the heroine Kashe gets a mental link to a demon that experiences positive emotions as negative and negative as positive and is eating her soul. When she figures this out, she inverts the process and gleefully tortures it into submission by focusing on her good feelings.
  • In Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Kamille tried to pull this with Haman, but all it did was tick her off. Namely, Haman used to have a one-sided crush on Char as a teenager but he rejected her, which she took as a personal betrayal; what Kamille did was to show Haman a Newtype vision of herself and Char in a happy relationship, which resulted in Haman angrily calling Kamille a hypocrite for claiming that people can understand each other while messing with her head.
  • All over the place in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn.
    • During their second duel, Banagher almost kills Marida while under the effect of the Unicorn's NT-D before she shows him her memories as Puru Twelve. He instantly finds the mental fortitude to restrain the system and spare her life.
    • Banagher attempts this with Loni, but a combination of her deep-seated revenge issues and the Shamblo's malfunctioning psycommu renders it ineffective. Riddhe is forced to Mercy Kill her in order to save Banagher.
    • In the final episode, Riddhe has a rather traumatic Newtype awakening during battle, so Mineva and Marida try this to calm him down. It almost works before the Banshee's rifle bumps against the Banshee's exposed psycoframe, turning the Mind Hug into a Mind Rape of the sensory overload kind that causes Riddhe to reflexively grab the rifle and blow Marida away. She finishes the job anyway as a Newtype ghost, reducing Riddhe into a sobbing wreck.
  • Basically the entire point of the Trans-Am Raiser in Mobile Suit Gundam 00.
  • Kenzou Tenma of Monster tries doing this to Johan early on to stop him from killing one of his patients. It didn't work.
  • The title character's dancing seems to do something like this in Princess Tutu.
  • Sailor Moon has a few attacks that simply "heal" or "purify" monsters or transformed humans. These are spliced in with all the lethal attacks she uses.
    • Sailor Chibi Moon attacks with "Pink Sugar Heart Attack". In the anime, it rarely works - and when it does, it tends to be more of a nuisance used for humor. She eventually joins Sailor Moon in a lethal attack during SuperS. In the manga, her attacks are all lethal despite still having names like "Pink Sugar Heart Attack".
  • Amelia, Gourry and Zelgadis of Slayers tried this once on a member of the Mazoku race, which feeds on negative emotions. It was so effective that they had him writhing on the ground in pain.
  • Soul Eater:
    • Maka matches soul wavelengths with Crona to confront them leading to them appearing to each other as children, with Maka erasing the border in the sand Crona put around themself. When we go back to the real world it seems to just make Crona crazier, but then Maka finishes the job with a regular Cooldown Hug.
    • Marie specializes in this; her ability is literally named Healing Wavelength. She delivers a mind hug to both Maka and Stein at one point in the anime, when both are overcome with Madness. She follows this up with a literal Cooldown Hug to Stein, presumably he needs it since his Madness is naturally a bit higher than others' Madness.
  • In Space Patrol Luluco, after it turns out that Alpha Omega Nova was an Empty Shell working for the Big Bad, Luluco discovers that she still cares about him and winds up blasting him with her own feelings. It not only gives him emotions, it makes him love her back. Because no matter how stupid a middle-schooler's crush is, it is STRONG.
  • Trigun:
    • The manga version features an incredibly long climax whose final resolution involves Vash giving every plant on the planet, in the form of Knives' Body Horror collective thing, a Care-Bear Stare via bullet. He reminds all of them about the humans they always wanted to protect, so they detach from the Kill All Humans party, and then it rains angels.
    • It affects Knives, too. He apologizes, and apparently dies. But later-apparently he had just enough energy left to pull together a human form, and get a nice hat to spend his final years wearing. He doesn't tell Vash.
  • Wedding Peach uses this as a Finishing Move and its targets always Heel–Face Turn because of it.
  • Exploited by a villain in YuYu Hakusho, by Mukuro's father, who had used her as a sex toy since birth, and threw her out after she had thrown acid on herself to make herself less appealing. The mind hug was implanted into her at a very young age, giving her conflicting feelings of joy and happiness with her father whenever there were thoughts of death and revenge. This left him safe from her but unprepared for Hiei's attack, who took this situation and made her a "sweet" birthday present, if we read "sweet" to mean "thoughtful, but still some pretty damn creepy." They're youkai, so it works.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V introduces Smile World, a normal spell card that gives 100 ATK points to all monsters currently on the field, for every monster currently on the field. Visually on the anime, it spreads smiley faces all over the field, and paints cartoonish happy smiles on all monsters. This same card got some protagonism and even secured wins on the duels that acted as a reverse Mind Crush for Edo/Aster Phoenix, making them ultimately defect from Academia after previously going completely bonkers at the sole thought that dueling can be a fun thing to do.

    Comic Books 
  • The 99: Noora has the power to shine light at people, making them see their own inner darkness and feel guilt. Not coincidentally, "noor" means "light" in Arabic.
  • Angel: After the Fall: Used by name on Illyria when the psychic floating fish Betta George flooded Illyria's original form with Wesley and Spike's memories of Fred.
  • Deadpool: In Deadpool 1997 #23-25, Deadpool has to save the world from a creature that would make everyone perfectly happy... so joyous in fact, that they wouldn't have free will. 'Pool is pretty mad that his big heroic act involves killing the bringer of pure bliss. His method is KICKING CAPTAIN AMERICA IN THE BALLS which turns out to be an effective method for Deadpool.
  • ElfQuest: Elven healers have the ability to not only heal the body but also the mind. Winnowill is a healer who went mad, and misuses her powers accordingly. She's keenly aware that the heroes' healer, Leetah, could actually fix her, and she will do just about anything to avoid this.
  • The Eternals: Starfox has the power to project good feelings. He mostly uses this to get laid. This is only to be expected, given his real name is Eros. She-Hulk tries to bring him up on charges of rape, since Starfox is essentially Roofieman. The resolution of that arc is that he never knowingly used his powers to that extent on anyone who wasn't already up for casual sex, but that Thanos had injured him so that he temporarily lost conscious control of them.
  • Ghost Rider: Mephisto gets this very often. In a What If? he traps the Silver Surfer in his hellplane, only to burn because of the purity of his soul. Likewise when Doctor Doom's mother Cynthia redeemed her soul, she ascended to heaven and burned him.
  • Green Lantern:
    • The Indigo Tribe is made up of reformed villains whose rings provide them with a compassionate outlook... in many cases, not entirely willingly. When the rings come off... hoo, boy.
    • Blue Lanterns have a similar ability, their blue rings able to cool down the rage of Red Lanterns.
    • One storyline deals with Abin Sur's relationship with the tribe (and the antagonism he had with Indigo-1).
  • Justice League of America: JLA (1997) member Faith has been described as a psychic "warm and fuzzy generator". Her mere presence makes people feel good and get along better.
  • Lucifer: The fallen cherub Gaudium, backed into a corner by a mind-raping people-eating monster, defeats it by radiating "joy and love and peace. Just like it says on the label"
  • Spider-Man:
    • In the Maximum Carnage crossover, Spider-Man and his friends built a Care-Bear Stare raygun and used it to mellow out most of the villains that had teamed up with Carnage. But since Carnage had never experienced such positive emotions before, the effect on him was more akin to Mind Rape.
    • In The Amazing Spider-Man (Dan Slott) #700, Peter (trapped in Doctor Octopus' dying body after a "Freaky Friday" Flip) uses a Care Bear Stare consisting of his own memories to convince Doc Ock to be a true hero. The result is Superior Spider-Man (2013).
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: In a Manga adaption, Kirk met up with an entity called the Bandi Bear, which was a living teddy bear with empathic capabilities. Kirk found the only way to "conquer" it was to approach it with love.
  • Superman: In the storyline The Black Ring in Action Comics, Lex Luthor releases the Zone Child (a creature that intended to purge all negative emotion from the universe) from the Phantom Zone and defeats it. He gains its full power and proceeds to use it as the Zone Child would. We then get a montage of The DCU (the entirety of it) experiencing eternal bliss. Luthor learns that he can only keep his newfound power as long as he doesn't do anything negative, so of course the first thing he does is try to kill Superman. This led to the Joker, of all people, commenting about how Luthor, with his pettiness, squandered the ultimate power to do good.
  • Teen Titans: In Teen Titans (2003) #58, Miss Martian fights her evil inner conscience by assaulting it with puppies.
  • X-Men:
    • Professor X has used his psychic powers to deliver a super mind hug, built of all the positive thoughts he could find to drive off Scary Dogmatic Aliens.
    • He did it again in The Ultimate Universe to stun Gah Lak Tus.
  • Zatanna: Zatanna once used this in order to Mind Rape someone. She "reprogrammed" Doctor Light, a vicious rapist, trying to pull out a good side that wasn't really there. What she succeeded in doing was creating an inept villain, but the idea was there. (This is the Retcon to try to make Doctor Light a threat: he used to actually be one, and the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain we know and love is the result of attempted Heel–Face Brainwashing.) Depending on your interpretation she either had slightly more success or much greater failure when she attempted the same thing in the pages of The Flash. Barry Allen asked her to try to make The Top, a recurring villain of his, an actual hero. It worked, at first. But Top now had a conscience and couldn't deal with the horrible things he had done. He went nuts and started trying to do the same to other Flash villains. It didn't end well.

    Fan Works 
  • In Becoming a True Invader, Zim has learned to weaponize what he did to Nick, using the latter as the source of a beam that makes everyone so happy they explode.
  • In the Discworld/GoodOmens crossover Doppelgangers, Carmine Zuigiber, the malevolent persona of War, is neutralised by making her a prisoner of the Happiness Fairy. It is truly Hell for Red.
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami: Ami gets the emotional trauma she suffered from her earlier Mind Rape of Malleus cured by going to a temple of the Light Gods.

    Film — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In the now-defunct Captain Eo, Michael Jackson does this (combined with The Power of Rock) to the evil queen and her minions.
  • In Ghostbusters II, The Team are able to channel the positive emotions of New Yorkers to weaken Vigo the Carpathian's hate-slime by coating the interior of the Statue of Liberty with positively-charged slime and getting her to walk by playing "Higher and Higher". Once inside the museum they're able to release Janosz from Vigo's power by spraying him with mood slime.
  • Little Nicky.
    Nicky: Release the good.
    [shoots rainbows out of hands and group of bunnies appear]
    Nicky: Yes, they're furry.
    Demon: Bunny, Bunny, Bunny, Bunny!
  • Orgazmo gives us Hotter and Sexier variation. The titular superhero has a weapon called orgazmorator which stuns his opponents with, well, orgasms.
  • Basically SG-1's entire strategy in Stargate: The Ark of Truth. By opening the Ark in the presence of an Ori Prior, the team intends to reveal the true nature of the Ori to the entire priesthood, depriving Adria of the faith and belief that powers her abilities.
  • In Star Wars, Sith are said to have a skill called Dun Möch, used to commit psychological warfare against their opponents. Mockery is part of it, but apparently not all. It has an inverse side which Luke used on Anakin in Return of the Jedi, reminding him that he still had good in him. The novelization makes it clearer that this is actually a power, and Luke is trying to use it to call out the Jedi he's sure is somewhere in the Dark Lord of the Sith. Vader resists on the surface of Endor, but it still has an effect. The Sith who most favors it (apart from perhaps Palpatine) is, who else, Count Dooku.
  • X-Men Film Series
    • X-Men: First Class: Charles Xavier uses his telepathy to help Erik Lehnsherr recall a happy memory from long ago in order to unlock the full potential of his friend's powers.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: A dying and weakened Professor X enters a state of Dissonant Serenity so that he can focus his residual psychic powers to transmit to Jean Grey his absolute faith in her that she can let loose the Phoenix without killing him. Through The Power of Love, she finally sheds her deep-seated misgivings, and she's able to direct her devastating flames solely at the intended target (namely Charles' would-be murderer Apocalypse).

    Literature 
  • In Lynne Reid Banks' Angela and Diabola, the appropriately-named Angela telepathically sends her twin sister Diabola warm thoughts while the obviously devilish one is being soaked by the rain outside, because she's just that selfless. This act of goodness enrages Diabola so much that she sends in return the wettest, most wicked thoughts she can muster up, which are enough to make Angela convulse in shivers. Later on, Angela uses this power on other people. Inverted with Diabola, who can hurt and attack people with her mind.
  • Animorphs: Jake morphs into a Howler, a member of the foottrooper race of the Crayak built to do nothing but have fun destroying and murdering. When Jake learns that all Howlers ever created share a hivemind, he begins pushing all of his memories of love and kindness into it. The end result is that the next time the Howlers are sent to destroy a planet, they try kissing everyone instead.
  • Happens by Dora Wilk Series by accident. When Azjel comes to kill Nathaniel, Dora tries to blast him with storm magic, but in panic reaches for love magic. This proves to be actually better, as it awakens the memories of Azjel's mother, therefore bringing back his emotions and humanity. The sheer shock drives him away and when he returns, it's as an ally.
  • Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem features special drugs benignators that cause severe feats of tenderness and love in humans.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Boggarts are creatures that transform into your worst fear. The spell to counter them is "riddikulus," which turns them into something hilarious, and laughter drives boggarts away. Patronuses (Patroni?) do a more solemn, protective version of the same thing to dementors.
    • A dark version of this is also how Harry gets Voldemort out of his mind in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when he wishes he could die, so that he could be with Sirius. He continues to use a version of it to keep Voldemort out and to keep his mind out of Voldemort's.
    • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Riddle's diary exploited Ginny in a manner similar to lovebombing. She told him about her everyday troubles and he expressed sympathy, causing her to feel loved and understood. It was all a ruse to make her susceptible to his Mind Rape.
  • In The Hour Before Morning, Jenchae tries this on Elek, but gets more than he bargained for.
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. Not intentionally done by the citizens of Whoville, but probably the definitive example of this trope, when the Whos' celebration of Christmas — despite losing all of the outward trappings — sends the Grinch into an existential crisis and results in him entirely reforming.
  • This happens in The Inheritance Cycle in The Final Battle. Eragon and the old dragons join together to defeat Galbatorix. It starts as a reminder of the pain he caused, then turns into a full-blown Care-Bear Stare. He winds up going even crazier than he already was, and kills himself to make it stop. In a pretty spectacular way.
  • The Last Dove: the Doves, particularly Queen Vasi, have the ability to defuse tension and make people feel at ease.
  • The title character in Lord Valentine's Castle does this. Actually, Robert Silverberg is fond of this trope in general.
  • Night World series: Maggie does this to Delos. She takes a romp through his head and kisses happiness and light into the darkness. It's not nearly as sweet as that makes it sound.
  • Dameon in The Obernewtyn Chronicles and other Empaths are able to bathe people in feelings of calm, love, comfort etc. This just as well for the emotionally repressed protagonist.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • Truce At Bakura: Luke uses the Force to blast light into the darkness in Dev Sibwara's mind, freeing him from the Ssi-Ruuk's Mind Control
    • In Traitor Jacen Solo wins back the trust of a Yuuzhan Vong dhuryam (an organic computer that looks like an Eldritch Abomination) with "perfect empathy".
    • During Galaxy of Fear, Tash Arranda makes friends with Ultimate Life Form Eppon before his creator the Big Bad shows up and takes him away. Later he uses it, much more monstrous now, against them, and Tash finds herself calling on the Force to remind it who she is and that they were friends.
  • At the climax of the Sword of the Stars novel, The Deacon's Tale, The Deacon has Cai Rui's love for his mentor and Iishi's love for his mate telepathically forced into his mind, awakening the atrophied parts of his mind that deal with love and kindness. This is made all the more jarring by the recipient's nature as member of a species who consider mind rape as a healthy form of social interaction, and the Care-Bear Stare thus ends up turning him into a self-flagellating, neurotic and suicidal wreck. According to the game's sequel, he got better. So much better, in fact, he ended up rebelling against The Great Masters and became responsible for a liir-zuul alliance.
  • In Sword of Truth, magical healing works by sharing the pain of the healed. When someone is affected by an ailment of the soul, the healer has to link his own soul with theirs. This is described as being much more intimate than sex, though not erotic in any way.
  • Jasper in The Twilight Saga. He is The Empath of the Cullens, and is often called on in the first book to calm Bella down with feelings of peace and happiness. Inverted in the fourth book, where Jasper follows Bella around for a while because she is emitting such positive emotions.
  • Something like this happens to Wendy Nogard in Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger when she tries to use her evil telepathic powers on Mrs. Jewls' baby: "Babies don't think in words. Miss Nogard heard pure love. And trust. And faith. With no words to get in the way. It was a love so strong that it dissolved away all the bitterness that had been caked around her heart."
  • In The Wish List, apparently, whenever an act of perfect good is performed, it sets off an explosion in the spiritual plane that leaves ghosts unaffected, but has the same effect as a nuclear bomb on demons, and it leaves a nice scent around them when they end up splattered back in Hell.
  • Happened in the conclusion of The Witch Returns. The villain is finally defeated when the entire family of the protagonists gathers in a circle around her and assaults her — with acceptance and general goodness. All her evil power fades away, leaving only a kitten, which apparently symbolizes the bit of goodness that was left in her heart.
  • At the end of Madeline L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle in Time, Meg Murray's brother Charles Wallace has been converted to evil by the being called IT. She frees him by concentrating on and expressing her love for him. She PONDERED doing it to 'IT'... but she found that impossible; she could never have any love for the Eldritch Abomination.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In Angel's third season, post-Plot-Relevant Age-Up Connor gets a Care-Bear Stare from Cordelia when he tries to kill her.
    • Although later developments suggest it might have been something a little more sinister. After all, it's not like Connor's demeanor towards anyone else improved as a result.
  • One episode of Bewitched involved aliens visiting Earth and threatening the neighbors with their terrifying N-guns — which turns out to stand for "niceness".
  • Annie from Community has a will bending stare that the she uses to gain sympathy and, if necessary, shame people into doing the right thing (or, after she gets wise to it, doing what she wants). Jeff is particularly susceptible.
    Jeff: You're becoming dangerous, Annie. It's those doe eyes. Disappointing you is like choking the Little Mermaid with a bike chain.
    • Two seasons later...
      Jeff: This won't work. The last time you did this, I saved a vial of your tears and I've been slowly building up an immunity.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Doctor frequently uses positive emotions (or any emotions) against the Cybermen.
    • "The Shakespeare Code": The Doctor pulls this one with a deranged Elizabethan mental patient who had previously been subjected to Mind Rape.
  • Stark from Farscape can psychically transmit memories, making him ideal for calming down those in pain or distress. He's also very good at helping the dying to cross over.
    • The Eidolons are legendary for their Care Bare Stare: quite simply, it's a calming aura used to make individuals "see reason," powerful enough to have Scorpius, Crichton, and Emperor Staleek cheerfully sitting around a table discussing the terms of a Peace Treaty.
  • The Power Rangers in Space finale "Countdown to Destruction" had the Red Ranger destroy Zordon's chamber, unleashing his goodness on all the bad guys battling. Monsters were turned to dust, humanoid villains were all turned good.
  • Not exactly a mind hug, but in Star Trek: Voyager, Tuvok initiates a mind-meld with Lon Suder, a mentally disturbed killer. The meld, along with Tuvok's teaching him Vulcan self-discipline, allows Suder to gain some peace. After some time and training, he begins to feel that he might be able to control his homicidal tendencies.
    • In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Sarek (Spock's dad) has Bendii's syndrome, a Vulcan disease that leaves them unable to control their emotions. A mindmeld with Picard alleviates his symptoms enough for him to finish a mission. Unfortunately, it turned Picard into a raving lunatic for the duration.
  • Inverted in Star Trek when Kirk fills his mind with racist hatred to infect an android duplicate that is being made of him via a mind-scan: Spock realises it's not the real Kirk when the android starts insulting him.
  • The cult featured in the Strangers with Candy two-parter "Blank Stare". It works on Jerri - and when they try it on Chuck, who has supposedly come to rescue her, all it takes is the words "Do you need someone to love you?" before he breaks down crying and gives in.

    Music 
  • The music video for The Chalkeaters' song "Breathtaking" features flying pink puppies that attack various game companies with light beams, which cause the company buildings to turn pink and spew out rainbows, and the executives of said companies to walk back on their controversial statements and decisions.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Dungeons & Dragons, the Emotion spell in "Happiness" mode makes victims unwilling to attack without an extreme provocation.
  • Compel Emotion in GURPS: Magic can be used to compel happiness or peace. Ecstasy is a more malicious variant used to incapacitate the target.
  • The Magic: The Gathering card "Pacifism" essentially disables opponent creatures by making them too peaceful to attack or block.
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse gives the Children of Gaia (the most pacifistic of the various Tribes) the Gifts Calm (which allows them to slowly prune away an opponent's Rage, or possibly bring them out of frenzy) and Dazzle (which freezes an opponent in place by giving them a vision of the true beauty of Gaia).

    Theater 
  • Depending on the director, this can happen at the end of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, when the Queen of the Night is destroyed by the appearance of a family united in love.
  • At the end of Pokémon Live!, Mewtwo uses his Psychic Powers to use Ash's memories and pure heart to do this to "Mechamewtwo", the robot super-Pokémon that Giovanni created as his new superweapon after creating Mewtwo backfired on him. This teaches it right from wrong, and it selfdestructs to take down Team Rocket.

    Video Games 
  • In the Demonflame adventure pack for Champions Online, you force a demon into temporary servitude. After you rescue some children, it uses the happy thoughts of those children to destroy a magical barrier. Before doing this, the demon informs you that "Regrettably, it will not harm the children."
  • Disgaea: Hour of Darkness:
    • Laharl is subjected to one of these in the form of sexually attractive women spouting optimistic phrases. Given his aversion and (literal) allergy to the aforementioned, his stats are cut in half for the next fight. Flonne spouting "eternal love!" didn't help at all.
    • Were Flonne a buxom succubus like the aforementioned attractive women rather than a flat-chested angel, Laharl would likely have been slain outright.
  • All three Mother games seem to have the characters using this to beat the final boss.
  • Paint in Epic Mickey has this effect. It restores damages from thinner and redeems enemies into friends.
  • Lenneth Valkyrie, of Valkyrie Profile, can use the experience gained by her Einherjar to increase their virtues and reduce their vices to increase their individual "Hero" rating.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, Queen Mikoto set up a barrier around her kingdom of Hoshido so invaders from their warmongering neighbor, Nohr, would become peace-loving upon entering the barrier's range. In response to this, the Kingdom of Nohr invented Faceless, soulless undead monsters who have no will to be affected.
  • In Ghostbusters: The Video Game, if someone gets possessed, you have to hit them with positively charged slime to free them. This same slime also closes ruptures to the ghost world, renders evil black slime inert, and does more damage to certain targets.
  • In Halo Wars, one of the skulls players can collect will make any Scarabs on the map fire, instead of the normal blue plasma, a rainbow beam which covers the target in hearts and bubbles.
  • King of Dragon Pass has what players have nicknamed the Chalana Arroy Peace Bomb. An inaccurate summary is that a clan pools its magical power to send one of its members back to the world's creation, where she (re)performs one of the great deeds of that age. By affecting the creation, she Rewrites Reality in the present. One deed consists of healing everything in sight, so a good enough healer can spam it until everything is sunshine and puppies.
  • Parodied in Red Faction: Armageddon, where beating the game gives you a new gun in the form of a unicorn that shoots (highly explosive) rainbow lasers out of its butt, complete with farting sounds.
  • Pyrovision in Team Fortress 2. Essentially the Pyro character sees themself wielding a magical tuba (flamethrower) that sprays rainbows and bubbles (blazing napalm) at the various cartoon creatures (opponents) found in their personal candyland (battlefield).
  • James did this to Dolores in Zone of the Enders Dolores i when she had a Heroic BSoD via Journey to the Center of the Mind. Appropriate, considering she's a Robot Girl.

    Web Animation 
  • A literal Care Bear Stare is apparently used as a weapon, similarly to the XKCD example, during the original Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. It hits Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Chan, knocking them out of sight - Lincoln is later seen dead on the ground, but Chan isn't seen again, and the Care Bear itself also vanishes. Since "only one will survive", it can be presumed that all three are dead.

    Webcomics 
  • In 8-Bit Theater. Black Mage's Hadoken is powered by love, in the sense that a minivan is powered by petroleum: every usage depletes the universe of some of a finite resource. Apparently, the divorce rate increases with each use.
  • This Dark Legacy Comics strip, where due to Player Character predation, only the sickeningly cute ones survive. Only a small group of wolves managed to adapt, and thus was born the Gnome-Eating wolf.
  • Delve: Teal gains the power to use her aura of positivity as a weapon against unholy foes. Mainly by transforming demons into butterflies.
  • Parodied in DevilBear The "Care Bear Stare" is referred to as a "Virtue Bear Condescending Glare". It is a rainbow attack that incites love, serenity, and altruism... manifested in the form of [[Fartillery farts]].
  • In the Superhero arc of Dragon Tails, Lemuel becomes a villain named Sparkles with the superpower of "Happiness Sparkles", in an attempt to pacify his enemies. It doesn't work particularly well - all it does is make them feel rather happy about beating the snot out of him.
  • El Goonish Shive: an Immortal used a heavy assault Care Bear Stare called a Serenity Spell as an emergency Instant Sedation for a magic-user going bananas.
  • The effects of Agatha Heterodyne's "perfect" coffee in Girl Genius. Except on other Sparks, who are more overall resistant than normal people, and Jaegermonsters, for whom it's just Verra Gud Coffee, Vit A Nize Kick.
  • In Nodwick, they do a parody of the Dungeons & Dragons (2000) film. In the film, there is a scene where Damodar does Mind Rape of the captive Marina Pretensa. In the Nodwick comic, Damodar attempts this on the captive Piffany, the Lawful Good cleric who is all about gumdrops, rainbows, and kittens. Her mind is too happy and cheerful for Damodar to take, and he begs her to just take the treasure map and go. (See it here.)
  • The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: In "Emote Control", after Wonderella frees Wonderita from a sorceress's mind control, they embrace and mention The Power of Friendship, which apparently is enough to blast the sorceress to pieces. It's sort of taking that line "The most powerful weapon of all is friendship!" literally.
  • Something*Positive, in one of their many RPG storylines, has Davan playing in a game based on statting up kids' toys. Thinking the others would leave their toys unmodded (clearly not knowing how girls play with dolls), he is left with a "stock" Care Bear. His Care-Bear Stare proves useful, though... as a distraction, so the rest of them can rip him apart.
  • Inverted in an xkcd strip. This "Care Bear Stare" is an energy blast that knocks the target down, and the black hat is a long-established identifier of the strip's Jerkass character. Word of God says that he got this power from eating Care Bears.

    Western Animation 
  • The Trope Namer is the Care Bears. Originally conceived as a powerful weapon against the bad guys, Adventures in Care-A-Lot introduced the notion that it could also be used to heal and cheer up sad Care Bears and kids. It isn't used nearly as often in Welcome to Care-a-Lot. Through the first fifteen or so episodes, it was only seen once and was used by the bears to simmer down a bully, forcing her to stop bullying another girl and actually talk about the feelings of jealousy she had which led to the bullying in the first place.
  • In The Fairly Oddparents:
    • There exists a race of self-proclaimed evil aliens whose weaknesses include chocolate, flowers, and hugs. In fact, there was an episode where a Care Bear-esque army of creatures invades their planet through the use of cereal boxes and the evil aliens are unable to do anything because the power of cute exhibited by these creatures is too strong. Until they learn they taste like manure, said aliens' most loved delicacy, at which point they proceed to eat them.
    • A greater example is shown in "Wishology" as the Darkness is defeated by blasting it with a celestial smile, turning it into the Kindness.
  • In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the Elements of Harmony can act like this, complete with bonus points for a literal stare (with Glowing Eyes of Doom) being the final part of the spell. Or they can just exile ponies to the moon.
    • In "The Return of Harmony: Part 2", in the climax, after Twilight shakes off Discord's influence when she's reminded of how much her friendship with the other five means to her, she goes around using a spell to snap her other five friends out of Discord's control. It consists of her playing back memories of who they really are, and what they mean to each other, and the happy thoughts override the Hate Plague that Discord put each of them through, bringing them back to normal.
    • Downplayed in "A Canterlot Wedding Part 2": Cadance and Shining Armor's combination spell that blasts Queen Chrysalis and her changelings out of Canterlot. The downplayed comes from the fact that, from what we know, the wave itself is a physical force, Cadance's love only serves to give Shining the power to perform it.
    • Played straight in "The Crystal Empire", wherein Cadance's magical barrier of love and happiness is impossible for the evil King Sombra to enter without getting disintegrated. It is the positive emotions of every pony in the Crystal Empire, amplified via Crystal Heart, that ultimately destroy him. Not seal him or purify him or anything. Destroy him.
    • Used once again in Equestria Girls to undo Sunset Shimmer's demonic transformation.
    • Done yet again with the Rainbow Power in "Twilight's Kingdom Part 2", depowering Tirek back to his original form and resealing him in Tartarus. Afterwards, it becomes a World-Healing Wave that restores the magic to all of the drained ponies.
    • In The Beginning of the End the Mane Six unite and, with The Power of Friendship and Heart, they charge up and defeat King Sombra...by outright killing him with a blast of friendship-powered energy that graphically blows him to pieces on-screen. One could call it Friendly Fire.
    • In The Ending of the End as Twilight combines the magic of her friends, the Student Six and the Pillars of Equestria into one gigantic rainbow beam that not only defeats the Legion of Doom but also destroys the Windigos as well.
  • In Peppermint Rose, the Peppermint Glow song does this to the villains, opening their hearts and turning them good.
  • Pibby: Parodied, thanks to a Lampshade Hanging by Pibby, when Melira sarcastically asks her if she's going to save the world with The Power of Love. Gilligan Cut to Pibby wielding a freaked out Care Bear Expy as a weapon.
  • Deconstructed in Regular Show when Muscle Man babysits his girlfriend's little sister by watching a Huggstables marathon with her. They execute bad guys by literally hugging them out of existence. This traumatizes a middle-aged man into endless nightmares about being erased from reality by love and positivism.
  • In Robotman And Friends, the title character and his pals can perform a version of this by producing music with positive emotions, which they use to defeat their arch-enemy Roberon. Sometimes this involves magic notes which appear and bombard the villain although other times it's entirely musical without any visuals. Either way, it has the same effect on Roberon as the Trope Namer does on the villains in Care Bears. As Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, and Roberon hates music anyway, it causes him to go berserk and run away. One time, it hurts him so much, he is physically reduced in size and vanishes out of existence (presumably sent back to the Land of Shadows because he returns just fine later). It only works on Roberon, though, due to positive emotions and music being his weakness; his Mook Sound-Off isn't affected by it at all.
  • In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Peter is forced into a Journey to the Center of the Mind by the symbiote trying to convince him to stay with it. Peter's memory of Uncle Ben gives him this figuratively and literally, by using his memories of his friends and his good deeds to make him strong enough to defeat the symbiote.
  • Maguro from Sushi Pack frequently uses her telepathic powers to share zen thoughts when an antagonist needs to calm down. In one instance, she used this on her own teammates to make them follow a course of action that they did not agree with.
  • In Teen Titans (2003), the mechanical Fixit attempts to turn Cyborg into a pure robot, but in linking his brain to Cyborg's, Fixit's mind is flooded with all the simple pleasures of life that he had forgotten after removing his own humanity. He releases Cyborg and decides to try to relearn some of what he had lost.
  • Believix powers in the universe of Winx Club fill the target with positive feelings. They can end arguments and lift spirits.
  • W.I.T.C.H.: In "N is for Narcissist", Cornelia gains the powers of all the other four guardians, including their secondary abilities such as Irma's telepathy. Cornelia uses this to channel a telepathic blast of "hot confidence" into Tridart. As Tridart feeds on fear, he is drastically weakened and knocked out.

"Look, kid, do you really think we're going to save the universe with the power of love?"
Melira, Pibby

 
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Alternative Title(s): Mind Hug, The Power Of Pure Happiness

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Pibby - Power of Love

Parodied, thanks to a Lampshade Hanging by Melira. While Pibby is discussing plans on how to save the universe, Melira sarcastically thinks that the only way to save the world is the power of love. Smash cut to a more aggressive Pibby at a much later point, wielding a freaked out Care-Bear expy as a weapon as it shoots heart-shaped lasers.

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